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Police officers still are killing U.S. civilians at about the same rate as they did in 2015, but attention to the Trump administration has forced police violence and criminal justice reform more broadly out of the headlines . . .

The 21st Century Cures Act provided $500 million to deal with the opioid crisis but three-quarters of it remains unspent. The law's two-year spending span makes it difficult for treatment providers to build long-term programs. "This is a total failure," says one expert.

A majority of Americans favor marijuana legalization, but opinions can diverge sharply at the local level. There are tensions between those who want to treat it as a business and those who see it as an opportunity for social justice.

Opponents of gun control argue that better attention to mentally troubled individuals will do more to prevent mass shootings than restricting access to firearms to the general population. But our columnist argues that there is little evidence supporting mental illness as a critical factor in acts of tragic violence.

Ty Cobb, an attorney for President Trump, says he is not considering the firing of special counsel Robert Mueller. Cobb issued a statement after another Trump lawyer, John Dowd, seemed to be laying the groundwork for dismissing Mueller. Dowd called the special counsel's probe "corrupted" by political bias.